


The Ghost of Beacon Hills High

by MostFacinorous



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostFacinorous/pseuds/MostFacinorous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Who the heck is Greenberg? Like… has anyone ever even met the guy? Or seen him?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost of Beacon Hills High

"Hey, can I ask you something?" 

Stiles arrived with his usual solemn grace, plopping himself into the chair next to him in a flailing heap of arms and legs. 

Isaac looked up at him. 

"Would it matter if I said no?" he asked, but he had a smile on his face, used to it by now. 

"Not in the least." Danny assured him, leaning in to steal a grape from Isaac's plate. Isaac flicked his eyes at him to acknowledge both the theft and his words, before turning his attention back to Stiles, who was practically vibrating with impatience. 

"What is it, Stiles?"

"Who the heck is Greenberg? Like… has anyone ever even met the guy? Or seen him?" 

Isaac went to shrug it off, the way he did a lot of Stiles's harebrained ideas… but then he paused. He finished chewing and swallowed before answering. 

"I always sort of assumed he meant Danny, actually. Since, you know, he has that thing with not being able to pronounce names correctly. No offense." 

Danny shrugged.  
"None taken. But no, he calls me Danny." 

"Huh." Isaac was willing to let it go, but Stiles was nodding enthusiastically. 

"Yeah, exactly—everyone is accounted for, literally every time he talks to the guy. I think Coach has fallen out of his tree."

"Out of his—what, really, who even talks like that?" Danny asked. 

"So… you think he's got an imaginary friend? Or do you think he's just pulling our legs?" 

"I think we should find out." 

Isaac and Danny exchanged a glance, both sure that this was going to end somewhere in the realm of 'why did we ever listen to Stiles'. Again. 

***

"Do you ever just feel like, ridiculously alone?" Greenberg asked him, and Finstock rubbed along his jaw. 

"Real hard to feel that way when you won't leave me be, isn't it?" He snapped back, but there was no real bite to his words.  
"I don't know. I guess maybe that's better than giving you a chance to feel lonely, isn't it?"

"Why don't you go make friends with someone on the team? Someone closer to your age. You know, teenagers are a pretty lonely group, think of all the people you could be being not lonely with who aren't me." 

The coach has a certain coarseness, but he's never actually sent the kid away. He knows what he means, more than he'd like to admit. And he's seen how the kids ignore him—even to the point of cruelty, from guys he'd never have expected cruelty from. 

Passively ignoring someone was one thing, but when those two had come up and asked if Greenberg was actually his imaginary friend—and right in front of the guy—he had been afraid to look Greenberg in the face. 

What a punch to the gut. 

***

"Bilinski! Lahey! Ten laps! You better get going!" Isaac glared at Stiles and took off, not that he actually minded, but really—why did Danny get to be the one who sucked up to Coach Finstock? He could be perfectly charming, too.

Not as charming as Danny, sure, but… still. Nobody was as charming as Danny. He just never thought he'd be running laps because of it. He turned around backwards and jogged that way, giving Stiles an easy grin while he struggled to keep up.

"So the imaginary friend angle didn't work out so good then… giving up yet?" 

"He just said Greenberg wasn't doing anything wrong today—not that he wasn't his imaginary friend. Did you see any one on the bench he pointed at?"

"Well, no—" the smile slid off Isaac's face. "But so what. Maybe he really is just messing with us." 

"Lahey, if you have time to turn and talk, you have time to run an extra lap!" Coach shouted from across the field. 

Isaac stuck his tongue out at Stiles and turned his back to him, moving a little quicker, just enough to not make any one suspicious.

"Greenberg, I want you to hit the pool after this. You're getting a little flabby, and if you think people don't like you now, wait til you see what happens when you get a gut the size of mine. Go on, get!" 

Danny's forehead wrinkled, and he turned to follow the coach's line of vision when he tracked the movements of someone leaving the room… but there was no one there, and that made Stiles seem that much more credible.  
He turned, meeting Stiles's eyes, and was rewarded with a smug grin. He arched an eyebrow and shrugged, non vocal communication becoming more and more common between them. 

Isaac was lucky he was cute, because he came with some of the weirdest hangers on. 

Stiles tilted his head at the coach, where he stood with his back to them, and made shooing motions with his hands. Danny nodded once, and then sighed, and went back to tying his shoe.

***

"You're awful rough on Greenberg, aren't you, coach? I mean—no one is that bad, and you know, for a school with a no tolerance policy for bullying... that definitely isn't how you go about setting an example." Danny was leaning against his locker, hands in his pockets for the very image of casual.

"You got a little crush there, Danny? Look, Greenberg's a good kid—he just needs to not hang around me so much. He needs to go make friends his own age—maybe you could consider tucking him under your wing. Everyone seems to like you well enough. Give him a leg up, you know?" The coach had his arms crossed, and she sounded about as earnest as he ever got. Danny's brow furrowed, but he nodded. 

"Yeah, I'll talk to him at lunch, maybe." 

"See that you do." Finstock looked oddly pleased with himself. 

***

"Are you doing okay with your grades? I mean, none of the other teachers come to me about you, but I figured I should ask. Most kids, they have as much trouble with their peers as you do, their grades suffer." He was going for his gruff but caring thing again. He'd had a long career of perfecting it, but he didn't think he'd ever had to use it on the same student as much as he has with this guy.

"No, I'm… I'm doing fine. I'm working on some really cool research papers right now, actually." 

"Oh yeah? About what?" 

"Um. About the different approaches to writing biographies and interviewing people."

"Huh. Is that—you planning on doing that for a living?" He wondered if he'd said something funny, from the way Greenberg's face twisted, like he was amused or something. 

"Sort of. I think I'd like to write the histories of famous landmarks, and the people who lived and worked there." Greenberg's eyes still held that little bit of mirth, though, the sort of thing that translated to trouble, regardless who your were talking to.  
Coach just waited for the other shoe to drop.  
"Do you think—I mean, if you don't feel it'd be inappropriate, do you think I could practice with you?"  
There it was. 

"You want to interview me about my life?"

"Please? It'll totally help my uh, grade."

"Yeah, yeah alright. I guess my life has been pretty interesting. When do you want to start?" He scratched his chest as he reviewed the story of how he lost a testicle. Greenberg wanted an interesting biography, he'd get one.

"We could start now, sir, if you'd like." 

"I'd rather be called 'cupcake' than sir any day, but Coach is fine. Alright, I was born in Boston…"Greenberg clicked his pen out and nearly dropped his binder, he opened it so quickly.

***

"I need you to hack the school computer system."

"What? No. Why?" Danny's eyebrow was arched, and Isaac was scowling from where he was laying with his head in Danny's lap. Danny ran his fingers through Isaac's curls, and Isaac's forehead smoothed.  
Stiles just rolled his eyes.

"Because if Greenberg is real, he'll be registered in the system." Stiles pointed out. 

Isaac looked up at Danny, angling his head to meet his eye. 

"Stiles has a point. I mean, if we want to quit beating around the bush—it'll even have a picture, if he was here for yearbook day, or if he has a student ID."  
"Yeah… yeah I guess. Alright. We get caught though, you are talking us out of trouble. I'm not having this on my record this close to graduating." 

"Deal!" Stiles announced, and punched the air. "Awh yeah, solving mysteries. Good times." 

"…Have you just been really bored since things quieted down?" Isaac asked, and Stiles had the good grace to look ashamed. 

"I'm just curious." He mumbled.

"Yeah you are." Danny said dismissively, and flapped his hand at him.  
"You can hardly blame me—come on, even you have to admit the Alpha pack just slinking out of town at two in the morning with their tails between their legs was a little anticlimactic." 

"Don't look for trouble just because none has found you yet." Danny warned, and Isaac just nodded. 

"Yeah, cool. So, see you here around eight?"

Danny just groaned.

***

"I don't suppose you know anything about women, hey Greenberg?"

"What do you mean, cupcake?"

He stumbled over what he'd meant to say next, and laughed, glad the kid had done that—tripped him up, interrupted his angst session.  
"You got a girlfriend, Greenberg?" 

"Jeff." He was tapping his pen against his binder, and not really looking at him, and somehow that was weirdly more comfortable.

"Huh?" 

"My name. It's Jeff. Jeff Greenberg. No. I'm not really …I'm sort of bad with people in general. Don't know if you've noticed."

He flapped his hand at him. 

"Seriously, Greenberg, I don't get it. You're a bright kid, funny—who did you piss off?" 

"You know, I don't think anybody actually like, actively dislikes me. It's more like I'm… sort of invisible to them." He shrugged. "It doesn't bother me that much, really. I don't mind people watching." 

"Don't you ever get lonely, though?"

"Pretty sure I asked you that first. And, like you said, hard to be lonely when I spend so much time hanging out with you." He shrugged again, still not really looking at anything, but there was a weird catch in his throat. 

"Gr—Jeff?" He took a hesitant step forward.

"Hmm?" Jeff looked up, and his eyes were a little teary. 

"You okay there? You know I actually—I don't mind you hanging around, right?" He asked, and Jeff smiled and rubbed at his nose. 

"Yeah, thanks. I just—well, you know." He gestured between them. 

"Yeah?" His heart jumped into his throat while he tried not to extrapolate on the little gesture. 

"But, you know. Can't." 

"Right. Right, my job, you underage… that is what we're talking here, isn't it?" 

"Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um. So. Yeah." He shrugged again, and looked back to his shoes. 

He didn't know what to do. 

"Bobby." He blurted. 

"What's that?" 

"My name. Bobby. And you know—it isn't like you're going to be stuck in highschool forever." He offered the kid a hopeful little smile, well aware that there was a line here that they were toeing. But he wasn't gonna touch him. That was where they were drawing the line, and that was where it was going to stay. 

"I—I have to go." Greenberg lurched off of the bench he had been sitting on, and gathered his things clumsily, making for the door like the police were already on their heels. 

He cursed to himself. 

***

"All I'm getting is some old school newspapers, like, 1967." Danny shook his head slowly, eyes still locked on the screen. "Some kid named Adam Greenberg who died here in his freshman year. Looks like… hit his head in the swimming pool after hours."

"Right. So he's a ghost then, is that what you're saying?" 

"That's not…" Danny started, but then stopped and looked at Isaac, who lifted a shoulder apologetically. 

"I don't know. I just get furry, I have no clue if ghosts exist or not." 

"Man, I wish Deaton hadn't skipped out with the alphas." Stiles said, his mouth angling like a living emoticon. 

"Was there a memorial picture of him?" Isaac asked, and Danny grinned at the blonde and pulled it up. 

"Can you print it off? We can ask Coach if that's what Greenberg looks like." 

"Awh man, Isaac, you're a genius. You too Danny, no wonder you guys are all touchy gropey." Isaac biffed Stiles on the back of the head, and Danny slid the chair backwards, rolling across the room to catch the paper as it dropped into the printer tray. 

He held it up, and they looked down on the face of the guy who was probably haunting the coach. 

"…you know, he kinda looks like your ex." Stiles said, looking at Danny. 

"He looks like Chris Evans." Danny responded, eyes sliding to Isaac to try and gauge if he was upset at all. 

"Who looks like your ex." Stiles insisted, and Isaac shrugged and took the paper. 

"We'll ask him tomorrow. Sign out of the system, and let's go."

***

"What are you on, Bilinski? You see him day in and day out, does Captain America there look anything like him?" He waved a hand at Greenberg, and then thought better of it.  
"Jeff, come here. Look at this." He held up the print off, and Stiles, Danny, and Isaac traded a look.

Unfortunately, Finstock caught it. 

"What's going on here?" He stared each of them in the face in turn, stopping on someone on the other side of him who wasn't even there. 

"Coach…" Danny's voice was soft, quiet… concerned. "Coach, we don't see him every day." 

"What are you talking about?" He demanded, shifting so that he was further from them, presumably physically taking the side of Greenberg.

"Coach, there's no one there!" Stiles insisted, stepping forward suddenly and waving his hand through the air next to the Coach. 

Finstock stopped and stared. 

"Greenberg? Jeff? Where did--?" He spun back to face Isaac, Danny, and Stiles, confused, but his face cleared up. "Ahhhh—hahah, okay I get it. Cool trick. Mirrors and lights?" 

"Coach…" Isaac tried, but Finstock held up his hand, cutting him off. 

"I'm just glad the four of you are getting along. Now, save it for your auditions for Bye Bye Birdie next month, okay?"

***

He found himself standing alone in the locker room, shaken. That had never happened before. No one had ever tried to call him out before. 

They'd find a way to justify it, he knew. But it still made him nervous.  
He waited a couple of hours, and then went looking for Bobby. 

He found him in his office.  
"About earlier—" 

"Hey, that was good. I'm just glad you're finally coming out of hiding a little, making some friends. Whose idea was the magic trick, by the way? Was it Bilinski? I mean, Stiles. That boy's smart as a whip, but a little esoteric with how he's smart, you know?" 

"You mean Stilinski? As in Stiles Stilinski?" His eyes went wide. 

"Is that an S? Damn. Can't read my own writing." He shrugged it off. 

Well. That explained things, then. Jeff sat with Bobby for a bit, talking, but his mind was elsewhere. 

***

"This town is so historically important," The guide says, walking backwards through the halls.  
The group of teenagers huddle close together, well aware of how it's important, and why—it's a story they've told each other since they were small, a story to scare, a story to see if they can make each other cry. 

This town is like Pompeii, kinda. They know. They all know. But the guide is going to tell them anyway. He's not much older than them, still greasy haired and pimply, probably some sort of research intern.

"This is the town where the local pack clashed with the Alpha pack. The first time in the modern world where werewolves-- lycanthropes—became a part of public awareness. The Alphas felt that this threatened the entire species, because the more humans there were that knew, the closer they came to overpowering Were-kind, and the more likely it was that the wolves would end up under a scalpel for science experiments. So they eradicated all life from the town. Everyone died. And this is said to be the biggest paranormal hotspot of all. I've personally had hundreds of encounters with one ghost in particular—a man I call 'cupcake'—it riles him up—who is the spirit of the coach here at what used to be Beacon Hills High School." A couple of the girls shivered. 

"He isn't gonna hurt us if we see him, will he?" One asked, a tall, dark girl with a bright pink shock of hair. 

"No. In fact, chances are he won't notice you, because of hairstyles and clothing that wouldn't make sense to them. Selective sight, I guess. You see, all of the ghosts here—and we've recorded in the area of several hundred—are here because they don't know how to break out of their routines." His eyes turned sad, and though his voice didn't change much, it did hold a somber note. "All of the known members of the pack died in this school, trying to save their classmates. Seeing someone who doesn't fit in with the way they see the school usually just causes them to… well they sort of up and disappear. But, that doesn't mean that you won't see them, and that doesn't mean that some of the less observant students who died here won't try to interact with you, not realizing that they aren't still alive. We ask that you not tell them, if you meet them. Try not to treat them any differently than you would any person at school. But try and get their names, and learn about them as much as you can. That's your assignment today. Observe, or communicate, if you can. Buddy up, explore, and take notes of anything you see or hear."

"And who do we call if we need help?"

He pointed to the walkie talkies they'd been handed when they came in. 

"I'll be on channel three, and I know this campus better than I know my mother. Just give me a general description of where you are, and I'll come and find you. Sound good?"

The class chorused an unenthused sounding, "Yes Mr. Greenberg." 

"Oh, and the boys' locker room is off-limits. Have fun, and try and learn something, okay?"  
He smiled and waved them off.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want updates on future stories or just want to hang out and say hi, you can find me at MostFacinorous.tumblr.com!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bravery Beyond](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1404589) by [celestialshimmer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialshimmer/pseuds/celestialshimmer)




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